Kafka in Oxford

Abstract

Franz Kafka’s manuscripts are among the greatest treasures of Oxford’s Bodleian Library. The vast majority of hisNachlass is housed in the Bodleian’s special collections, and its presence has resulted in world-leading research and critical editions, in conferences and public exhibitions, outreach work and international collaborations. In this article I trace the journey of Kafka’s manuscripts, before reflecting on their legacy — on the opportunities and challenges of this collection and its role in a forward-looking and inclusive vision of Kafka studies in the twenty-first century. So how did the autographs of an early-twentieth-century Prague writer end up in Oxford? Interestingly, this situation is not (or only to a small extent) the result of targeted institutional collaboration and primarily the product of a mixture of chance and luck and, most importantly, of personal networks and connections. To unravel this story, it is necessary to go back to Kafka’s lifetime. One of the bestknown facts (or indeed myths) about Kafka is that he did not actually want the world to read his texts. Max Brod, his friend and posthumous editor, recounts a conversation in which Kafka told him to burn all his unpublished manuscripts after his death. Brod apparently replied that he would do no such thing, but after Kafka’s death in June 1924, he found two written notes which reiterated the instruction, probably written in late 1921 and November 1922 respectively.